What TV series are you currently watching?

[hopefullytrusting]

It's a pity that the Homeland series couldn't meet your high standards. In my naïveté, I watched all the seasons with considerable interest and enjoyment

I don't have high standards, I watch NCIS for goodness sakes, but I can't watch a show where the lead is someone I deplore, and Danes is that. It is like she hadn't grown since My So-Called Life, and she was annoying in that as well, but at least that fit the character.

More egregious, to me, is what they do with Brody after the first season, as I noted I looked up the plot points, and I would've come to loathe him as well given the show's direction of his "growth".

[Valentino]

Just finished So Long, Marianne, an eight episode NRK drama based on the love story of Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen. Norwegian/Canadian/Greek co-production.

[Karl Henning]

I've rewatched Rose Red which I haven't seen in twenty years or more. This miniseries holds up. Stephen King borrowed heavily from Matheson, but it works.

A psychology professor hires psychics to spend three days in the mansion hoping to gather evidence of the paranormal so that people will stop seeing her as a kook. Things go awry...

Nice. Interesting! Have you seen his Kingdom Hospital mini-series?

[Karl Henning]

Just finished up revisiting the 1981 Nero Wolfe series. I've already gone on record as preferring the series which came 20 years later, so I won't belabor that point. Some further comments, even as I concede that behind some of them is arguably some conditioning from my prior fondness for Timothy Hutton's production. First, I do repeat that overall I enjoy the '81 series, and wish we might have had more of it. Not to call Wm Conrad at all a bad Wolfe, but I do feel that Lee Horsley is better as Archie Goodwin. The earlier series has a Theodore (Wolfe's orchid man) as part of the ensemble, sometimes. Maybe this is true to the source, but generally when Theodore is in the script, he's apt to be rather a buffoon, and I find myself applauding the later series' decision to leave Theodore offstage. In the earlier series, too, Saul Panzer comes across as a shade boorish, which rankles with me from his more sympathetic portrayal in the later series. Also much better IMO in the later series is Bill Smitrovich as Inspector Cramer. What probably helps is that in those scripts, he's a better integrated member of the ensemble. I should emphasize that I'm responding to the two series simply as a viewer, as I have not yet read any of Rex Stout's books. One of these days....

[NumberSix]

Nice. Interesting! Have you een his Kingdom Hospital mini-series?

I have seen Garth Marengi's Dark Place. 

[DavidW]

Nice. Interesting! Have you seen his Kingdom Hospital mini-series?

When it was first on! I don't remember it. My favorite King miniseries is Storm of the Century.

[Karl Henning]

When it was first on! I don't remember it. My favorite King miniseries is Storm of the Century.

Not sure, my sister turned me on to it on DVD. Great atypical environment for Ed Begley, Jr

[hopefullytrusting]

Going to start this show (Blindspot) sometime this week. Came across it when I was looking for other things that Sullivan Stapleton (Animal Kingdom) had starred in (he had such intense eyes). (I also loved how the cover reminded me of Remember Me - a sweet videogame.)

[NumberSix]

7pm MST on October 30 - the final two episodes of Agatha All Along are now available on Disney+, and I am excited. It's been a terrific series for the first 7 episodes.

Gonna start the eps now.

[NumberSix]

7pm MST on October 30 - the final two episodes of Agatha All Along are now available on Disney+, and I am excited. It's been a terrific series for the first 7 episodes.

Gonna start the eps now.

Well, I don't know if they failed to stick the landing. I don't think so, based on the generally postive reception I have seen online. People found it funny, emotional, and mostly satisfying.

I just found myself not caring. Weird. Maybe I was not in the mood to see it, like I thought I was, and I will enjoy the final two eps on another day. 

[VonStupp]

LotR: Rings of Power, Season 2 (2024)

Tolkien's written word isn't the hallowed ground for me as it is for others. As with the first season, the multiple storyline-type episodes ensure at least some of the episode will work better than other parts.

I still feel the show is slow-moving, where the watcher can feel the gears grinding towards whatever end-goal the producers have in store. Yet, if one doesn't care about the characters and what they are doing, will anyone hang around to find out what that is?

Had a similar feeling with House of the Dragon, where the wheels move slow enough in order to add season after season. Still, I will probably come back to both, since eight episodes isn't particularly time consuming.
VS

[DavidW]

I still feel the show is slow-moving, where the watcher can feel the gears grinding towards whatever end-goal the producers have in store. Yet, if one doesn't care about the characters and what they are doing, will anyone hang around to find out what that is?

That is also how I feel. It has been a long time since I was a youngin' reading Tolkien, but the show is just boring at times, and silly in others. I have not tried S2 yet.

btw on House of Dragons... GRRM himself praised S1 but condemned S2 with a harshly worded blog post (that has since been deleted).

[Kalevala]

That is also how I feel. It has been a long time since I was a youngin' reading Tolkien, but the show is just boring at times, and silly in others. I have not tried S2 yet.

btw on House of Dragons... GRRM himself praised S1 but condemned S2 with a harshly worded blog post (that has since been deleted).

How involved was/is GRRM with the show?  I watched some of the first season of it; I forget where now.  Think that I could watch more of it if I chose to via Amazon Prime.

K

[DavidW]

How involved was/is GRRM with the show?  I watched some of the first season of it; I forget where now.  Think that I could watch more of it if I chose to via Amazon Prime.

K

It streams on Max, you can't watch it on Prime except with an add-on sub. I don't know how involved Martin is. I can tell you (because it might be a parallel) how it works with Brandon Sanderson and Wheel of Time. They send him their scripts and he critiques them. They take or leave his criticism and then make the show, and he finds out after the fact with screeners or when it airs/streams.

[Kalevala]

It streams on Max, you can't watch it on Prime except with an add-on sub. I don't know how involved Martin is. I can tell you (because it might be a parallel) how it works with Brandon Sanderson and Wheel of Time. They send him their scripts and he critiques them. They take or leave his criticism and then make the show, and he finds out after the fact with screeners or when it airs/streams.

Thanks for the info.  It looks like Max would be another 10 bucks a month. 

K

[VonStupp]

That is also how I feel. It has been a long time since I was a youngin' reading Tolkien, but the show is just boring at times, and silly in others. I have not tried S2 yet.

btw on House of Dragons... GRRM himself praised S1 but condemned S2 with a harshly worded blog post (that has since been deleted).

One thing I will say about the second seasons of both TRoP and HotD, I needed very little reminder of who everyone was, what their motivations were, and where they were coming from and moving towards. It was as if two or three years hadn't passed at all.

With the second season of WoT, their extremely unhelpful recap left me completely in the dark for about three episodes before I started putting pieces together from my memory. Initially I remembered exactly one side character (who had a very defined look), but absolutely nothing else at all.

Authors should indeed be very protective of their works, yet when they sign off on a visual interpretation, expectations should also probably be low. P. L. Travers ought be a warning for any writer looking to make an extra buck when giving their rights away, conditions or nay.
VS

[hopefullytrusting]

You would think with such an awesome premise, the drop-dead gorgeousness of the lead, and taking stories based on FBI counterterrorism that the show could not be boring.

Well, I am here to inform you that after 4 episodes this show has somehow figured out a way to make terrorism boring, which I didn't think was possible.

I do not know if I will complete the seaason (we'll see).

[hopefullytrusting]

You would think with such an awesome premise, the drop-dead gorgeousness of the lead, and taking stories based on FBI counterterrorism that the show could not be boring.

Well, I am here to inform you that after 4 episodes this show has somehow figured out a way to make terrorism boring, which I didn't think was possible.

I do not know if I will complete the season (we'll see).

Watched three more episodes, and they finally had a great episode, so I will definitely finish the first season out, but man, this not a show I could recommend to anyone other than to say read the summaries online then start watching with Episode 7, but Episode 7 is totally worth it.

[NumberSix]

Watched three more episodes, and they finally had a great episode, so I will definitely finish the first season out, but man, this not a show I could recommend to anyone other than to say read the summaries online then start watching with Episode 7, but Episode 7 is totally worth it.

I have never seen this one. But I know some shows that do reward patience. Mad Men comes to mind, which famously tends to dip in quality mid-season before hitting a home run to finish each season.

Of course, some shows are the opposite, and your patience is rewarded with insulting trash. That would be the ending of almost any Ryan Murphy season that I have ever watched. 

[hopefullytrusting]

I have never seen this one. But I know some shows that do reward patience. Mad Men comes to mind, which famously tends to dip in quality mid-season before hitting a home run to finish each season.

Of course, some shows are the opposite, and your patience is rewarded with insulting trash. That would be the ending of almost any Ryan Murphy season that I have ever watched. 

Lol, I know you didn't do that on purpose, as you've never seen Blindspot, but no one in their right mind would put those shows in the same sentence. Blindspot is similar to Alias, so it is meant to be fun cheese, while Mad Men was designed to win awards.

In truth, I've only watched Mad Men in clips as the show irritates the crap out of me. I'm black, and the way they talk about race on that show is disgusting (and that has nothing to do with historical accuracy, which, of course, it isn't). I tend to dislike all those AMC shows. I find them to be HBO but with no teeth.

Had to look up Ryan Murphy. The only show I've seen of his was Nip/Tuck, and most definitely was not the target audience for that show, but the two leads, I recall, being very dynamic (the one lead was from Charmed and the other from Oz, lol).